The present invention relates to an adjustable support assembly and, more particularly, to an adjustable support assembly designed to be placed in the wall of a cooling tower to allow an access door opening to be cut into such wall without loss of structural integrity.
Cooling towers or heat exchangers are typically comprised of fabricated sections made of sheet metal, with such sections typically being stacked on top of each other. For example, a cooling tower could comprise a lower structural section wherein fill would be placed to allow direct evaporation of water passing over the fill. An indirect cooling tower section could be placed on top of the fill containing section and contain a series of coils for indirect cooling of a fluid passing through the coils. Accordingly it is seen that the bottom or lower structural section of such cooling tower must support significant weight.
It is desirable in cooling towers to have an access door whereby maintenance personnel can enter the cooling tower for access to the internal components such as the fill, the indirect coil section, and the fan and motor assembly whereby air is forced or drawn into and across the fill and coil assembly. Such access door assemblies are restricted in their size and design by the necessary weight supporting needs, especially of the bottom cooling tower section. Further, such cooling towers come in various sizes whereby a bottom section of a cooling tower could be between six and fourteen feet in width, and six and eighteen feet in length, and between six and eight or ten feet in height. With such a large sheet metal structure, and with the necessary weight constraints in the design and construction of a cooling tower, the walls of the cooling tower structure, while comprised on sheet metal, need to be designed to support the necessary weight while being as light as possible.
With the need for an access door in both newly designed and especially existing cooling towers which may have a relatively small access opening that may not allow equipment to be brought through the access opening and barely allow the access by a maintenance worker, it is desirable to allow the retrofitting of existing cooling towers especially with a larger access door. With the necessary cutting and removal of the structural wall to enlarge the access opening and install an appropriate door, there is an inherent loss of potential structural support in the wall, especially of the lower cooling tower section.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an adjustable support assembly that allows a larger access opening to be placed in an existing cooling tower, or even in a newly constructed cooling tower, while providing necessary support above the lower cooling tower section in which the access door and adjustable support assembly is installed.
Further it is an object of the present invention to provide an adjustable support assembly that is almost universally applicable to various sizes of cooling tower walls.